The Monkey's Fist

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

This boat shapes a perfect bow wave through tannin-stained water in South Carolina.

The first spring after we’d moved to Annapolis and moved aboard
our sailboat, we went to a marina party welcoming home the returning
snowbirds. And I was thinking, “Wow,
someday, that will be ME. Someday I’LL
be one of those travelers!” One guest said
to one of the returnees, with a knowing smile, “I see you took the ‘inside’
route. You and your boat have that ICW look.”
In my naiveté, I wondered what “that look” was all about. Was it weariness from their long journey? Some kind of nautical nonchalance? Did they look like an “old salt” or ancient
mariner? Someday, will I have that flair too?

Fast-forward ten years, and we know that wasn’t an
unmitigated compliment.

You see them arriving in Annapolis around this time of year,
boats that have spent the winter in Florida or the Bahamas returning for the
summer, or passing through on their way to cruising grounds farther north in
Canada or New England. Their decks may
be cluttered with jerry cans for fuel and water, and they will invariably have
a dinghy of some kind. That’s how you
can recognize them as cruising boats, nine times out of ten. If they came up by the “inside” or ICW
(IntraCoastal Waterway) route as opposed to going the “outside” or ocean route,
they will also likely have a telltale brownish stain on the bow, jokingly
referred to as an ICW moustache.

It’s not a sign of laziness or poor maintenance on their
parts. The grungy look is due to the
water in the middle of the waterway that goes through cypress swamps. The water in these areas, while not polluted,
is naturally a clear deep brown color, like tea. (That’s not even a coincidence, the same
acids, called tannins, that give tea and coffee their brown color, are present
in this water. And far from being
polluted, the water was highly prized in old sailing days. When stored in barrels for long ocean
passages, fresh-looking clear water would all too quickly grow foul. The tannin acids, on the other hand, delayed
the growth of algae and slime, so the funny brown water lasted longer. While
funky looking, the water is perfectly safe to drink. (I’m told; I didn’t try it!)

So where does the moustache come from? When a boat moves through the water, the bow
makes a wave and water curls up along the front of the hull. Keeping that white plastic in contact with
dark water for hundreds of miles leaves a stain just like coffee in a white mug.

There are many conversations and much advice about how to
get rid of that brown stain, waxes and cleaning products, and natural solutions
like vinegar or lemon juice, published in cruising magazines and websites and
discussed at cruiser parties. We have
what we believe is the best low-maintenance solution ever invented for this
problem. Our whole boat is a light tan
color, very close to the same shade as the stain. No worries!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Cruise ship at night - it is easy to tell what this is from its lights, but not all vessels are so readily identified. (Photo modified from Villa Serendipity, St Lucia)

Our boat doesn’t have radar.
At night, especially, we keep a good watch and have learned to identify
other boats by their lights, and to call them on VHF radio to avoid
collision. It’s counterintuitive, but
the ocean is actually easier than the Chesapeake Bay for night sailing, there’s
just less traffic to interact with. In
the Bay you are constantly alert, over the course of the night there was always
at least one set of lights somewhere in our field of vision. On the ocean you can go hours, sometimes
days, between sighting other vessels.

This happened last
week on our overnight trip up the Chesapeake Bay. It was some time after midnight and the moon
was not yet up. Dan was asleep; I was
alone on watch with the stars and my thoughts.
There wasn’t a lot to do, the autopilot was humming happily, every few
minutes I’d look carefully in all directions to make sure there were no
surprises. But even if I wasn’t keeping
watch, I’d want to look around anyway, the night was mild and pretty, stars
peeking in and out through light clouds.
So I watched. And thought. There’s nothing, nothing, like being alone at
sea, at night, for figuring out if you like yourself.

We’d passed and been passed by four of ships in the last
couple of hours. Busy night! Ahead, very small, were the lights of yet another
ship. It was too far away to be a
concern yet, but I decided to watch it to make sure we weren’t on a collision
course.

Fifteen minutes later, it was almost imperceptibly larger
and closer, and hadn’t deviated – it was still directly on our bow. I couldn’t figure out what it was based on its
lights, but if it kept getting closer and the direction didn’t change, we were
going to collide. I remembered our
training – a small reaction or course change early does as much good, and is
certainly preferable, to a big panicky change later. I tried altering course by 20 degrees, and
waited to see what would happen. Nope,
they’re still there. Okay, call them on
VHF radio and see what they’re up to.
Nope, radio silence. This is
starting to get serious. What else to
try?

Another ten minutes, they’re Still. Right. There. Bigger, weirdly-shaped, but Still. Right.
There. Time to wake Dan up, I don’t
quite understand what we’re up against, it might take two. But he didn’t have any ideas either. We continued, both of us alert now. Bright and large, it loomed closer. Until finally the mystery ship began to drift
to our left, we still didn’t know what it was, but at least we were no longer
going to crash.

As we came alongside, we finally understood – it wasn’t a
ship at all, but the lights of the nuclear plant at Calvert Cliffs. And this understanding was even more
worrisome than an unidentified ship. We
sail totally sober – always – but our thoughts were so addled, it was as though
we had had several drinks. Learning how
profoundly tiredness affected our decisionmaking was (forgive the pun) truly
eye-opening.

(Turns out, this trouble with lights at night isn’t that
unusual. We told our story to our
sailing mentors James and Ellen, who sheepishly admitted that each of them once
did almost the same thing mistaking the glow of the rising moon below the ocean
horizon for an oncoming ship.)

So, we’re motoring up the Elizabeth River near Norfolk, VA,
and I can only describe what happened as “flash-mobbed by dolphins.” We’re churning along this very developed
industrial stretch when Dan called out, “Dolphin! There! Port bow!” Cool, I love seeing those guys. “There!
Again!” And then, “Another one,
over there, by that building!” and, with
increasing excitement, “There, too! Alongside us!” Suddenly we were surrounded by about a dozen
dolphins, leaping and splashing and playing in the sunshine. They weren’t hunting, or running, just the
sheer pleasure of exercising muscles in a way that I don’t remember doing since
I wrote my age with more than one digit, and seemingly inviting us to join (or
just watch in awe). They did their magic
for a few minutes, then, just as quickly as they had come, with a flick of a
tail, they were all gone, again, all disappearing at once. Surreal. And *this* is why we put up with the
inconveniences to live on a boat.

While the dolphin display was certainly the coolest thing to
happen to us in a long time, it wasn’t the only happy thing that happened that
day, because that evening we set the anchor behind Old Point Comfort – we were
back in the Chesapeake.

Next day began a beautiful sail with fair winds and an assist
from the current, sending us northward at times at speeds as high as 8 knots
over the bottom (in still air and flat water, we motor at 6 knots, so this was
a 30% boost!) Our plan was to play with
names a bit: there are many “Mill Creeks” in the Chesapeake and we were going
to anchor in a different one each night: the “Mill Creek” near Old Point
Comfort, then next night the “Mill Creek” off the Great Wicomico River, then
next night the “Mill Creek” near Solomon’s Island. But the weather was so glorious, and we were
moving so well, that on the spur of the moment, we decided to sail through the
night and reach Annapolis next morning.

While the decision was impulsive, it wasn’t frivolous; predicted
bad weather later in the week could have left us holed up in port somewhere
waiting for several days. So it made
sense to take advantage of the good weather now. While he was working with the OSTS sailing program at
the Naval Academy, Dan had sailed the length of the Chesapeake Bay on
overnight trips with a crew of midshipmen more times than he could count. While it’s never wise to be complacent about
the ocean, his experience did help with our confidence. We were both familiar
with the Bay, with our boat, and with overnight sailing together. And of course, we had everything we needed
(a.k.a., almost everything we owned)
right here with us – the benefit of living full-time on our boat. As the sun went down, I rifled through the
food lockers for easy sugary snacks to give us an energy boost, pre-made a few
sandwiches, gathered flashlights and life jackets and tethers.

There was one place where our spontaneity could have tripped
us up – the “float plan.” For safety’s
sake, it would be nice to have someone on shore know what we were planning and
when we were expected in, so they could alert the Coast Guard to start a search
if we didn’t arrive. And of course we
hadn’t preplanned that, so no one knew what we were planning. My Life Afloat on
Facebook page to the rescue! I’m
lovin’ this new iPhone technology – for the trip up the Bay, we had 100 friends
keeping us company, as we posted updates and a few photos from various spots
along the way. Having several friends to
chat made the long night watches pass, if not more quickly, at least more
cheerfully.

The night was relatively peaceful and uneventful. We shared the dark Bay with several tugs and
barges and even a small cruise ship, and watched a rusty red half-moon rise at
about 2 AM. The fair current was
actually too much of a good thing – by about 4 AM we reached Thomas Point light
just outside Annapolis harbor. We had
made the trip in record time … but didn’t dare come in until daylight so we
could see and avoid the crab pots that always line the shallows. We had slowed down for our last hour of
travel, but we weren’t slow enough, we were still too early. We “hove to” (a method of “parking” the boat
when you are in a place where it’s too deep to anchor) and waited for what
seemed like ages – Annapolis was so close, and we were sooo ready to sleep, but
we didn’t dare risk catching a crab pot in our propeller. At about 5:30, the sky went from black, to dark
gray, to lighter gray, and began to lift with shades of orange and blue, and we
finally completed the very last bit of our 7-1/2 month journey. Home again!

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The only good thing that can be said about sleeping in
clothing is that it makes for a very fast start to the next day. And after the night of a million mosquitoes, an
early departure was exactly what we had in mind. Another long day and we’d be across the
Albemarle Sound, a body of water famed, like the Chesapeake, for its short
choppy nasty waves in bad weather – and bad weather was predicted to arrive
late that afternoon. We hoped to be well
across before then.

The winds started to pick up around noon as we reached the
mouth of the Alligator River where it empties into the Albemarle and I started
to have my doubts, but the weather turned out to be absolutely benign for the
crossing. In fact, I decided that the
Albemarle was a rather pretty body of water, blue and sparkling in settled
weather. Then just as we got to the
other side and dropped the sail, the winds pick up and the sky began to take on
more threatening colors. But we were
across – and it would just get more and more sheltered from here.

We were still about an hour from our next available
anchorage and the winds continued to build and the sky to roil in ominous
shades of blue-gray-black. Weather radar
showed huge blobs of reds and oranges (the colors that indicate very strong
storms) coming towards us, and the Coast Guard announced increasingly frantic
special marine warnings about the storm.
Clarification: the Coast Guard themselves are never frantic, they are
the ultimate professionals, they just relayed NOAAs increasingly frantic text
warnings that “mariners should seek safe harbor immediately…” (yep, we’re doing
that, okay) “winds in excess of 34 knots…” (i.e., gale-force winds from
unpredictable directions, good thing we’ve already got the sails down) and “frequent
cloud-to-ground lightning” (uh, huh. We
live at the base of a 50-foot lightning rod also known as a sailboat
mast.) The race was on. It was dark as twilight and the chill wind
was pushing us sideways – the sail cover alone
was acting like a small sail. We pushed
the engine to the max (thank you Gary at Deaton’s
Yacht Service for the excellent tune-up you just gave it last week!) and
anxiously watched the sky. When we heard
the first rumbles of thunder and saw the first flashes of lightning, we
contemplated the minimally sketchy shelter in front of us. Should we drop anchor here, where we’d be
uncomfortable but probably okay, or do we think the storm will wait just a bit?
In another 20 minutes or so we can get to the better spot just a mile ahead?
(Note to self: this is where the expression “any port in a storm” literally
comes from.)

We decided to press on while the storm loomed ever
closer. We got to the spot we had picked
out on the chart … and it didn’t look like we remembered! But it still looked pretty secure – any port
in a storm indeed – and we were HERE and so was the storm. We set the anchor faster than we ever had,
and let out extra scope so it could hold us even more securely in a blow. I couldn’t help but remember that two years
ago we were just a few miles from this spot when we were hit by the downdraft,
and was scared of a repeat. I pulled up
weather radar again – there was that line of reds and oranges marching westward
toward us – and we went below to finish our storm preparations and wait. In addition to the extra anchor scope, we
left the engine idling and put our cellphones in the oven. (Huh? What’s THAT all about? Should we be
struck by lightning, it would of course scramble all the electronics; the
theory I hope never to have to test is that the metal box of the oven would act
as a kind of Faraday cage, dissipating the charge and protecting the phones so
we could call for help. We also have a
handheld GPS, handheld VHF radio, and backup hard drive similarly protected.) We sat, away from the mast and other metal,
and waited.

It wasn’t long at all before the first rain drops fell. Then
… nothing. Just a light, gentle spring
rain. It was as if we were shielded by
some magic cone of protection. The barometer
was rising again. How could the storm
possibly have missed us? I took a chance
on the weather radar – all the storms had dissipated when they reached the
western shore of the river, and we were anchored just off the EASTERN shore no
more than a half-mile away. Just like
that – gone! Whew! And, wow!

Sometime after dinner, it hit us. Too much adrenaline during the afternoon, and
too little sleep the night before, and we were done. Cooler than last night, and the wind is
certainly blowing the bugs away. We were
in bed by 8:30, planning on staying put the next day while the storm blew
itself out.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Underway again, repairs made and maintenance done. The engine was humming happily and the helm
was easy and the sun was shining and warm.
We had a great day on the water and made excellent time, covering more
than 50 miles to anchor near the head of the Pungo River. There was a small chance of thunderstorms in
the evening, so an anchorage that was secure and sheltered was more of a
priority than one that had nice breezes.
We were sitting in the cockpit enjoying a quiet evening, with the boat
open to the warm moist night air. Almost
360 degrees of trees, water, marsh, and nothing built by humans in sight in any
direction. This really is the life.

It started to drizzle and when we went below – ugh! We seem
to have gotten a little more shelter than we bargained for. The still air allowed the insects to come
out. There were mosquitos everywhere, a
LOT of mosquitos. Un-swattably many mosquitoes, on every surface. Finally in desperation we closed the boat and
burned a mosquito-repellant coil, letting it serve as an impromptu bug
bomb. I’m sure that stuff wasn’t great
for humans to breathe, either, but we didn’t have a lot of other ideas at that
point.

Well, the bug bomb idea was about 80% effective and soon
those mosquitoes were dropping like, well, flies, and we could swat them or
pinch them up in paper towels. Now
what? It’s hot, it’s raining so we can’t
sleep with the hatches open, and we’re wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts
and socks (all sprayed with Off!) to protect us from the remaining
mosquitoes. And we’re going to sleep
exactly how? The v-berth is even hotter
than the main cabin. Blankets are
unthinkable, but so is leaving skin exposed.

We ended up sleeping – or at least dozing – fully dressed,
one on each side of the main cabin, me on the starboard settee, Dan on
port. And I’m thinking to myself – this is
the 21st century! We have air
conditioning! We have electricity! Why am
I living like this? What, again, is so romantic about this life afloat?

I bet Dan that we’d be laughing about the “night of the
million mosquitoes” a few days from now, when we got the boat to Great Bridge, Virginia. We’d be drinking margaritas at our favorite
Mexican restaurant that’s an easy walk from where we usually tie up for the
night when we’re in that area, and laughing.
Just, I wasn’t laughing yet. (Note, I’m posting this story 4 days later
and I’m STILL finding little souvenirs of this night every once in a while, on
the rugs or floor. And we have arrived
at Great Bridge, Virginia, and tonight we’re going to that Mexican restaurant!)